For the long holiday weekend, we decided (after much internet searching) to go to Mohican State Forest (near Mansfield, OH), since it was the closest thing to where Nikki is, and we thought just in case it was too crowded we wanted to be able to fall back to staying at “her” camp.
Here’s my annotated version of the “trail” map provided by the Ohio DNR. We registered at the Forest Office for site #10, but after backpacking for about 3 miles, we never found it, but we did find #8, so we set up camp there.
We were hoping to find a spot near a stream for some water, but what I hadn’t realized was that all the winding the trail did was because it was on a ridge, so any stream beds we crossed were dry at that elevation. After we set up camp, we each went out to try to scout out some water, but we all came back empty. I did find a little stream that I thought I could get at least some water from, but when I looked up, I saw it came right out of a cow pasture. We had water purification stuff with us of course, but no sense tempting fate that much! We ended up buying a couple of gallon jugs of water Saturday night when we hiked out to go to the hockey game. I guess we’re too used to the places we camp in PA, where there’s always plenty of water available to treat and boil.
Pretty flowers around the campsite:
Dinner Saturday was ramen noodles with lemon-dill salmon (from a vacuum pack), with garlic crackers and provolone on top. Then we hiked back to the car and drove to a bar to watch the Pens get blown out by Detroit. Boo!
Some camp scenes (pretty typical of our trips):
Sunday hike down to the river:
Sunday dinner was our favorite camping standby… foil dinner. This one featured small new potatoes, asparagus from the garden, onion, and prosciutto. Was supposed to include green beans and carrots, but I sort of forgot them at home, heh. Oh, and homemade SanGiovese vino in the Sierra cup there.
Where have the days gone? 
Sounds like a wonderful w/end. Lovely photos and that last night dinner sounds positively delicious!!
I am jealous!
lovely photos, sandy. Im envious that you can sleep outside like that. when you get into our back country, its really rugged and wild and the weather is very changeable- so you have to have a pretty strong bivouac set up at all times..
Sleeping under the stars is one of my favorite things in the world – even [or maybe especially] when we're awakened by raindrops on our faces, as we were that Monday.